let me start by asking you to imagine
yourself imagine yourself but just a
little bit different
maybe you have visual impairments maybe
you have cerebral palsy
maybe half paraplegia and use a
wheelchair now rewind your data this
morning and redo all the things you did
you roll out of bed you jump in the
shower make some breakfast put your
clothes on and you make it be over here
now how much extra time would you have
needed would you be able to stick to
your daily patterns if you had a visual
impairment cerebral palsy or polyp
leader would someone have had to help
you and how would you even have made it
here but did you ever ask yourself these
questions before because I hadn’t
mobility and accessibility are things
that some of us don’t ever have to deal
with or not and silver a certain age
well for others is their everyday life I
kind of randomly stumbled into it
13 years ago I was studying textiles and
for my dissertation my supervisor a
wheelchair user herself mentioned
overheating to me I had no idea but a
lot of people who have a spinal cord
injury have trouble regulating their
body temperature simply put when we
exercise to an activity our body becomes
too warm and it sends a message to our
brain our brain and sends a message back
to start sweating when you have a spinal
cord injury that message line is broken
that means that you can no longer sweats
below your lesion could you imagine
doing your gym routine without the
ability to sweat you could develop
hyperthermia and your heart could quite
literally stop beating some athletes are
currently being sprayed with a water
hose to cool down so I find myself
thinking if this is such a huge
unaddressed issue and I’m fully unaware
of it then what other issues are there
out there that I’m fully unaware of and
most importantly what other issues need
urgent solving so for me my eyes were
certainly opened as a result of my
dissertation I created wheeler wheeler
is a battery-powered airflow backrest
Kishin that’s
manual wheelchairs it’s basically a
plug-and-play solution that has a
cushion that improves your posture it
makes you very comfortable and a battery
powered unit underneath that pushes air
onto the users back it’s the fact of it
it’s a very simple solution but it’s a
simple solution that is changing lives
one of your users told me that she was
able to sit in the Sun for the first
time in 20 years without overheating now
this is great but it should have
happened a lot a lot sooner if you look
at some statistics the UK government
published numbers at 11 million people
in the UK are currently living with a
long-term illness impairment or
disability 11 million is more than
double the population of Scotland the
most commonly reported impairments or
those the effects mobility now if you
look for example when I made wheel air
all of a sudden I saw wheelchair users
everywhere it’s kind of like when you
buy a jacket and all of a sudden you see
everyone wearing that jacket but with my
awareness of wheelchair users also keep
an awareness of accessibility or more
importantly how inaccessible the society
is to those who have a disability when
we look back at the numbers from earlier
a quarter of these people of the 11
million have said that they have little
or no choice or control over their daily
lives and one in five have reported
issues with accessing transports one in
five if you look at those 11 million
that becomes a huge number of people who
struggle every day to get from A to B
and when you look at mobility and
translated into accessibility the world
as we know it becomes one huge obstacle
first second and third series flats
without lift access pavements with
lampposts right in the middle pavements
without lowered curbs
people have to phone a train station 24
hours before taking that train and the
list goes on and on now these are things
that I completely was unaware of but all
it takes for you now to be aware of
these things what a couple of seconds of
placing yourself in someone else’s shoes
is when you look at the word disability
it literally means a lack of ability is
that really true or have we just created
a society in which
those who ha are just a little bit
different are made to feel less able you
know when you put the focus on ability
so much more becomes possible
now when you translate that into
entrepreneurship people solve issues
that are visible to them you know people
have wanted to start calling while
they’re on the move so the mobile phone
was invented then if you look at simple
solutions for example people when it’s
easier payment so they contact they made
Wireless payments if you like I will
share and disability products more
disability in general a lot of products
like wheelchairs were originally
designed by people who have that
disability but what if all of us saw
these issues – and what if all of us
were able to make solutions if we were
all thinking about these issues we could
create a lot more radical and true
innovation at a much greater speed I’m
not saying we can all do this in 2018
but I’m not saying we have to invent the
wheel sometime a small change to can
make significant impacts on someone
else’s life so what I want you to take
away today is this next time you’re
going to the beach try accessing it in a
wheelchair next time you’re in the
supermarket try reaching for your
favorite cereal in the top shelf from a
seated position just place yourself in
someone else’s shoes for a second maybe
it will just spark more consideration
and awareness but maybe just maybe it
might be the start of a beautiful social
entrepreneurship journey a journey that could impact the lives of millions
yourself imagine yourself but just a
little bit different
maybe you have visual impairments maybe
you have cerebral palsy
maybe half paraplegia and use a
wheelchair now rewind your data this
morning and redo all the things you did
you roll out of bed you jump in the
shower make some breakfast put your
clothes on and you make it be over here
now how much extra time would you have
needed would you be able to stick to
your daily patterns if you had a visual
impairment cerebral palsy or polyp
leader would someone have had to help
you and how would you even have made it
here but did you ever ask yourself these
questions before because I hadn’t
mobility and accessibility are things
that some of us don’t ever have to deal
with or not and silver a certain age
well for others is their everyday life I
kind of randomly stumbled into it
13 years ago I was studying textiles and
for my dissertation my supervisor a
wheelchair user herself mentioned
overheating to me I had no idea but a
lot of people who have a spinal cord
injury have trouble regulating their
body temperature simply put when we
exercise to an activity our body becomes
too warm and it sends a message to our
brain our brain and sends a message back
to start sweating when you have a spinal
cord injury that message line is broken
that means that you can no longer sweats
below your lesion could you imagine
doing your gym routine without the
ability to sweat you could develop
hyperthermia and your heart could quite
literally stop beating some athletes are
currently being sprayed with a water
hose to cool down so I find myself
thinking if this is such a huge
unaddressed issue and I’m fully unaware
of it then what other issues are there
out there that I’m fully unaware of and
most importantly what other issues need
urgent solving so for me my eyes were
certainly opened as a result of my
dissertation I created wheeler wheeler
is a battery-powered airflow backrest
Kishin that’s
manual wheelchairs it’s basically a
plug-and-play solution that has a
cushion that improves your posture it
makes you very comfortable and a battery
powered unit underneath that pushes air
onto the users back it’s the fact of it
it’s a very simple solution but it’s a
simple solution that is changing lives
one of your users told me that she was
able to sit in the Sun for the first
time in 20 years without overheating now
this is great but it should have
happened a lot a lot sooner if you look
at some statistics the UK government
published numbers at 11 million people
in the UK are currently living with a
long-term illness impairment or
disability 11 million is more than
double the population of Scotland the
most commonly reported impairments or
those the effects mobility now if you
look for example when I made wheel air
all of a sudden I saw wheelchair users
everywhere it’s kind of like when you
buy a jacket and all of a sudden you see
everyone wearing that jacket but with my
awareness of wheelchair users also keep
an awareness of accessibility or more
importantly how inaccessible the society
is to those who have a disability when
we look back at the numbers from earlier
a quarter of these people of the 11
million have said that they have little
or no choice or control over their daily
lives and one in five have reported
issues with accessing transports one in
five if you look at those 11 million
that becomes a huge number of people who
struggle every day to get from A to B
and when you look at mobility and
translated into accessibility the world
as we know it becomes one huge obstacle
first second and third series flats
without lift access pavements with
lampposts right in the middle pavements
without lowered curbs
people have to phone a train station 24
hours before taking that train and the
list goes on and on now these are things
that I completely was unaware of but all
it takes for you now to be aware of
these things what a couple of seconds of
placing yourself in someone else’s shoes
is when you look at the word disability
it literally means a lack of ability is
that really true or have we just created
a society in which
those who ha are just a little bit
different are made to feel less able you
know when you put the focus on ability
so much more becomes possible
now when you translate that into
entrepreneurship people solve issues
that are visible to them you know people
have wanted to start calling while
they’re on the move so the mobile phone
was invented then if you look at simple
solutions for example people when it’s
easier payment so they contact they made
Wireless payments if you like I will
share and disability products more
disability in general a lot of products
like wheelchairs were originally
designed by people who have that
disability but what if all of us saw
these issues – and what if all of us
were able to make solutions if we were
all thinking about these issues we could
create a lot more radical and true
innovation at a much greater speed I’m
not saying we can all do this in 2018
but I’m not saying we have to invent the
wheel sometime a small change to can
make significant impacts on someone
else’s life so what I want you to take
away today is this next time you’re
going to the beach try accessing it in a
wheelchair next time you’re in the
supermarket try reaching for your
favorite cereal in the top shelf from a
seated position just place yourself in
someone else’s shoes for a second maybe
it will just spark more consideration
and awareness but maybe just maybe it
might be the start of a beautiful social
entrepreneurship journey a journey that could impact the lives of millions
Please follow and like us: